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LOVE POEMS 



FOURTH SERIES 

REGINALD C? ROBBINS 




CAMBRIDGE 

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1912 



5*" 



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COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY REGINALD CHAUNCEY ROBBINS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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CONTENTS 



Page 
HIBERNALS 1 

I-XIX 

PARENTALS 23 

I-XXIV 

RELIGION IN NATURE 49 

I-XI 

WORK AND DEATH . . 63 

I-XII 

SONGS OF THE GENERATIONS 77 

I-X 

POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 89 

I-XXV 

SONNETS DOMESTIC 117 

I-XXXIII 



HIBERNALS 



HIBERNALS 



I 

Beloved ! how long ago a winter was 
Of loneliest desolation : 'neath mine heart 
An icy stiffening snow-sepulchred ; 
And all above, about my branches bare 
A frost-blanch'd irony, a sleeted blast 
Of bitterest endurance ! Love, how long. 
How longtime since ; though winters, ah, so few 
Have intervened ! For now the snow without 
Our windows swirleth round a fire-warm*d hearth 
Of heart's best homeliness ; the comfort of it 
Sustaining sap and splendor green throughout 
Our mutual forestage — as meanwhile sung. 



LOVE POEMS 



II 

For meanwhile many a song hath been to thee 

In praises seasonable of thy spring, 

Thy soul's-own summer and of autumn-time 

With death-deep, loyal griefs but binding close 

And closer yet the dear companionship. 

And now, with fruits of harvest, him our child, 

Betwixt us in our arms enfolded, we 

Hearken the boreal sepulchring without 

Of blithe, past raptures ; whilst, enraptured more 

With inward bliss, bless we the intimacy 

Of hibernation, earth's primordial 

Privity of love's garner'd aftermath. 



HIBERNALS 



III 

AND, soft-uncouth, an inarticulance 

Of infant-mouth primeval now, anon, 

Croons ripplingly in undersong, so tender 

An antiphon (if intermittent still 

And nowise imitative of the storm) 

In spiritual symphony thereto. 

That thou and I unto the firelight's smile 

And sympathetic murmurings of flame 

Yearn with the parent-thrill and presently 

Feel stealing to our very core of soul 

The wild, waste, outdoor mouthings. For we learn 

Luxurious kinship with the dearth-lorn blast. 



LOVE POEMS 



We learn and know the nature-element 
Within us which unto the desolate world 
Responds with sense of desolateness there 
Enarm'd, enfolded and attuned to souls 
Wholly at peace, at passionate peace, with all. 
*T is true, this body of man must find its breath, 
For peace' sake, not in nature-agony 
Of contest elemental but, in warmth 
And physic-comfort of the fire-gleam'd hearth : 
Before such feel in fulness be achieved. 
Alone *t is civilization yields our frame, 
World-worn, the life-chance of the strongest soul, 



HIBERNALS 



A SELF-WON strength of spirit thus is in us, 
Though ne'er so snugly our companionship 
Allows the hiemation, listeneth 
Awide to tempest-music whilst so close 
The folk-song flutters on the trustful lips. 
I need not shame, if that the happier heart 
Of this our spirit-homeliness more seem 
Winter-energic than that heart of old 
Exposed and harden'd, if so shrinkingly, 
So bitterly to the insensate gale. 
Now are both moods ennobled ; that, of dearth ; 
And this exuberance : by strength through thee. 



LOVE POEMS 



VI 

And in such mood exuberant we have pass'd 
The hours of storm that morningward endured 
From evening nightlong round our wonder-home. 
The hours of storm have pass'd in utterance 
Of something in me alien not to them : 
A rapturous wintriness if still hearth-bound 
In domesticity. But now abroad 
Ourselves into the morning-world start we, 
Anew that now the sun hath risen along 
The southward hillside and the clouds are swept 
Clean of the sky by yon new westerwind : 
We, in our wintry strength and majesty. 



HIBERNALS 



VII 

From ingleside and home-ties fare we forth, 
Leaving for focus of remembrance there 
The child, love's garner'd fruitage ; starting forth 
For rapture-fed communion with our world 
Of sheeted snow. For we have come, we two. 
Through autumn-griefs and autumn-harvestings 
Alike, to feel of the soul, as love allows. 
World-power : the vigorous splendor of the time 
(Which is not summer, savoreth scarce of spring) 
Which clotheth not with leaves the forest-lift 
Of life, but archeth, interarcheth high 
Over the snow a structure vaulted strong. 



9 



LOVE POEMS 



VIII 

FOR, in cathedral of the frosted god, 

Of earth as earth is hard and grandly free, 

Uprear in groin'd, well-architectured thrust 

Of noble openness and dignities 

The shafts of soul's organic forest, charged 

With mundane-orb'd endurance, with a worth 

Of heaven-wide inference ; beneath the sun 

His crystalline illumining, a faith 

Provided, scarce of inflorescence, yet 

Of fecund space-significance, a truth 

Magnificent in intimacy with 

The blue endoming earth's mosaic aisles. 



10 



HIBERNALS 



IX 



NOT now the low-door'd home, the nest of peace, 
But, valent and virtued by the peace within. 
For us the aspiration as of upreach 
And outlook cloudless of the frozen fane ! 
For us the liberal yearning, heart in heart 
And hand to hand (with soul-core centred still 
In the nested offspring) toward the sweep of life ! 
The light is on the hillside, o'er the fields 
The shimmer of opalescence, crystalwise ; 
And everywhere above the breeze-fleck 'd floor 
Of forest, the crisp twitter of nestless birds 
At home as we about the heavenly hearth. 



II 



LOVE POEMS 



FOR furry and feather'd hearts are all about us, 
Of sun inspired and steely element 
Ennobled to invite communion with them. 
Though they be meek and wary (ay, perchance, 
Of craft and fury to their weaker kind) 
Yet are we, by the love-tie, capable — 
In friendliness, in wonderment with them — 
Of audience which, though o'er the crypts of life, 
Yields hint of earth-sweet purpose and a song 
Through tinkling galleries echoing of joy 
Interpretative, ah, of utterance, though 
Primeval, yet intelligible aye. 



12 



HIBERNALS 



XI 

Intelligible — as the infant-croon 

Archaic, eozoan, yet hath found 

Its way of nature to the parent-heart, 

Ear-opening the soul of parenthood 

Even to the hearing of an humanism 

In wintriness, discordant though 'twould seem. 

These thin path-traceries in the powdery snow, 

This piping inarticulance above us, 

Bear meaning to the spirit learned now 

In lore earth-consanguineous. Love's speech 

Hath taken a winter-trick, a lilt of song 

Year-natured, from yon blessed cottage-walls. 



13 



LOVE POEMS 



XII 



Without those cottage-walls must lie indeed 

The mission in the opportunity 

To plead by music to the music-ear 

Of the love-uncultured folk, the furry things 

And feather'd of the vaults of frostedness 

And denizens of these cathedral aisles 

Of the frozen godhood : unto them to plead 

The inward-won fulfilment. And to them, 

Through them and in their sphery affluence 

Of freedom, freely sing I for the hope 

They '11 not refuse to hearken who have taught me 

By infanthood an elemental faith. 



14 



HIBERNALS 



XIII 



And, sith our song be elemental-borne, 

Why sadden we, should the tameless twittering 

Evade, in elvish and unfounded fear, 

Our footsteps haply flounder'd in the trail ; 

Or world, this outdoor, crisp and crystalline, 

Sunflooded fluorescence, echo mainly 

But love's misstep ; why sadden, when the faith 

Of honest purport foils the failure in us. 

Compelling confidence how crudest song. 

If single-tongued of friendship kindliest musing. 

Deserves world-hearing, world-earn'd complaisance 

In Orphean conclave of the birds and beasts ? 



15 



LOVE POEMS 



XIV 

And fear not we a Marsyan-cruel doom 
Of critical reprise should thus the skill 
Announcing love-initiation lack us — 
Skill requisite to make proselyte the cirque 
Of uncouth audience. Some least grief of loss 
Should be, though scarce of fear unto the soul 
Of the flouted singer for the vanish'd wings, 
The flirted feet of the airy, elvish crew ! — 
No pride so sensitive is in me now 
To tremble at misjudgment or to weep 
When once again with thee our nest of peace 
Wraps us around, world-instance still unwon. 



i6 



HIBERNALS 



XV 

Beloved, sans sense of such home-privacy, 

Dur low-door'd nest, with thee and garner'd meed 

Df harvesting in frame of him our babe ; 

5ans absolute immanency to annul 

rhe plausible failure of the missioning 

n the winter- world beyond, love had not dared 

rhe human heart-exposure ; but as erst 

-lad fled the splendid savagery and hid 

Deep, savage-like, in some rock-cavern'd lair 

-or sepulchring through season of the north — 

rhat, when the south came sweet, mayhap, my soul 

^ere torpid-swoon'd that bravely should hatve breathed. 



'4 

17 



LOVE POEMS 



XVI 

But, bravely now, no cold torpidity 
Shall numb the conscience with aborted pulse. 
For anthems full unto the frosted god 
Command the echoes, whether hark or no 
The votaries of his temple. And, the hour 
Of mission over, to the hearth of home 
Thy feet and mine return, the drift-pack'd path 
Retracing to the threshold — from within 
At the half-oped door a greeting, infinite 
In welcome to the sense, soul-primitive 
Of crooning inarticulance : the child, 
Love's first-fruits both and altar to the year. 



i8 



HIBERNALS 



XVII 

Beloved, how long ago the winter-world 

(Sans sense of thee and of such home-coming 

Potential from the paths laborious 

Of onways yet unbroken) had to me 

Seem'd onerous beyond the power of man. 

How long ago, though winters, ah, so few 

Have intervened, to sum themselves herein — 

In this the winter of our harvestings, 

This winter of our undertaking, so. 

To reach the storm-world with the warmth of breath, 

The wild world with love's all-civility : 

This speech of home-fire flickering to the tongue ! 



19 



LOVE POEMS 



XVIII 

And can the confidence of intimate speech, 
Of privacy poetic freeze within me, 
Stopping the voice of comfort, if the blast, 
Forsooth, scoff wilder and profane, perchance. 
Heart's very altar-hearth to puff at it 
With dismal-dread intrusion ? O, build anew 
The blaze, allow e'en this the blare of storm 
To buffet but with flame-flaps ! And more loud 
Swell with afflatus of the hearth-of-storm 
The music of the night-invaded door — 
An need be ! But nowise shame we and cease 
Love-utterance, though the soul itself be mock'd ! 



20 



HIBERNALS 



XIX 



FOR faith and sacredness assuredly 
Afford a self-assurance, guarantee 
Song-value though soul's shaken sanctuary 
Resound but hollowly to shocks of storm. 
And, where the sanctuary's founding-stone 
Base in earth's centre, no malignity 
With cynic scout can sweep to nought in the night 
Our sound of antheming. — The vanish'd wings ! 
Deplore we, both, that bourn of missioning ; 
But not the baffled mission ! Love, for we 
Sit close within the centre, still more sure 
Allied, that love hath proved love's privity ! 



21 



PARENTALS 



PARENTALS 



I 

The long-continued strain of thine unease 

Had nigh unmann'd me ; and thy latter pain 

Would overwhelm. A numbness, dread-compeird, 

Soddening all the spirit feels within 

Of resonant, had fain devolved upon me : 

Me mute when most some cheer but from the tongue, 

Courageous though by lip-vitality, 

Had been man's ministration. But the powers 

Of thy distress had well wrought dumbness in me — 

Sad-apprehensive of thy wearing days. 

And when the worst was come and fate was on thee 

With pangs of the birth, I stood not at thy side. 



25 



LOVE POEMS 



II 

I COULD but leave thee with the kiss of fear 
To undergo alone thine agony ; 
I then with heart of agony to hearken 
Apart thine hour of frenzy. Till thy torture, 
Wringing in me the very strings of the soul, 
Hath from the panic stupor waked me wide 
To vivid anguish and therewith a voice : 
A voice of terrible pity and of prayer 
For thee and for thine issue — but at last 
A voice, man-like : potentiality 
Of conquest over awful circumstance, 
Of insight beyond fate unto the soul ! 



26 



PARENTALS 



III 



FOR now I heed me that within thy heart 
Was never fear nor wearingness nor pain ; 
But outlook of the end, encouragement 
Of love-vitality directed toward 
The miracle of offspring ; nought of fate, 
But all self-purpose unto genesis, 
Autonomous adoption of the trial 
For that the trial only may afford : 
The event creative, the reality 
Of individual life anew begun 
Through interministration of thy life 
And mine, thus universal overtly.' 



27 



LOVE POEMS 



IV 

And so ; through thine adoption of thy share 

In power creative and its terror-stress 

Of pain as 't were by protest cosmic for 

The spirit-imposition in the clay ; 

Because thou sayest, " Let there be life ", and life 

Evolves upon the utterance (whate'er 

Of penalty thou payest, sacrifice 

By dint of the god-assumption, to the gods) ; 

Must I as well, within my milder part 

Of agony by sympathy, acknowledge 

Only the victory of vital love 

Above the dreadness of earth's cowering. 



28 



PARENTALS 



To vivid love and not to pain and fear 

Be then the song : where fear and pain have waked 

The spirit to vision but of life-begun — 

Hymning in dreadness of the cowering clay 

Mainly love's precondition. And, that now 

The issue of the birth hath come in hope 

(Not loss as formerly), shall thou and I, 

Though creatures of death's cosmos, prove therein, 

By burst of the cosmos unto soul afresh, 

Union intern : for bond between the worlds, 

World's babe, the god-embodiment of us 

As we are flesh and spirit with all earth'. 



29 



LOVE POEMS 



VI 



FOR that which springs of nature can but be, 
Despite earth's pain and fear, yet earth's-own child, 
Ensample natural (so proving earth 
Her fear, yet truth-potential) of that heart 
Of love which is our birthright ; which alone 
By soul-inception world-adoptively, 
Self-comprehending instinct, positeth 
Experience, precondition of the pain. 
Wherefore the child, well-known to be of love 
The formal fruit and of love formulate 
Incipiently, may fairly span the worlds 
Of earth and soul to constitute them one. 



30 



PARENTALS 



VII 

Wherefore as to some cosmic hearth of earth 
Welcome the spirit-comer as to home ! — 
Not from the vague, nor to the vague he cries 
Demonstrative of function. Not one breath 
But reconciles the birth-astonishment — 
Within and by the power of common clay 
Still to repeat in every instance new 
The organic intra-inference : within 
Each miracle-event, the reason-law 
Of sentience-involution ; illustrating 
In each pulse-beat afresh the evidence 
Of earth-formation as by will of earth. 



31 



LOVE POEMS 



VIII 



Behold, in every birth the immanence 

Of truth-formation by earth-travailing ! 

First by thy days of wearing, thereupon 

By this thine hour of frenzy ; and hereafter 

(Please hope!) but by babe's-nurture ; by child's- 

learning 
(Through dint of every wonder-influence 
Assertive on awe-infantile) of each 
Wisdom of worldhood, rudimentary dread 
Impress'd upon the dim interpreter 
Self-urged to adaptation : that thereof 
Be sentience stimulated, be built up 
The architectural ordinance of mind. 



32 



PARENTALS 



IX 

So, every way, the inter-inferences 
Of pact-response, be they in love or fear. 
Triumphantly demonstrate, each in kind, 
A comprehension through the influencing 
Instructive which, by process permanent, 
Develops earth or soul alike in each 
Uniquely universal evidence 
Caird individual, whose identity — 
Be it of chemic-compound or of man — 
Each in degree avows amalgamation 
To systemization meaningful, some proof 
Afforded of the person 'd permeance. 



33 



LOVE POEMS 



The permeance that is I or thee alike 

By virtue of our evidence distinct ; 

The person that began as of the babe 

In trial of this our fear and suffering — 

Thy pain and mine who, being concern'd but most, 

Must, through his never-ceasing sufferance 

Of earth-sensation, build and cumulate 

Earth-permeantly the personality 

Of one who, sharing heritage of us 

Alike, shall (unlike me or thee) beyond 

Aught of our possible interpretance 

Experience educative truth unique ! 



34 



PARENTALS 



XI 

But unto us the opportunity, 

If not of literal formulation, still 

Of guidance, introduction on the sense 

Of this expected personality 

(And predicated genius prophesied 

Of world-interpretance beyond our world) - 

Unto us twain the duty, love, devolved 

Of moulding unto exhibition first 

Such aspects of experience as seem 

Suggestive most — suggestive, ay, for thee 

Or me, not as we haply hitherto 

Have been but, as by parenthood become ! 



35 



LOVE POEMS 



XII 

Through sympathy progenitorial (lo ! 

Evolved, this hour of pain and earthly fear, 

In this thy happy issue !) happiness 

Shall guide, no doubt, the parent-instinct toward 

An understanding of the dim-felt need, 

Sure adumbration of the bourgeoning 

At world-beginning. For such happiness 

Is inly of an innocence akin 

To world-beginnings ; and, imbued with breath 

Of wonder at the contact, flowering 

In long-unwonted childnesses of joy 

Assisting sweetly love's rejuvenance. 



36 



PARENTALS 



XIII 

FOR, sooth, as in thy mother-face I see 
The solemn exultation, after pain 
The bless'd relief in high assurance of 
The issue's fortune, feel I humbly here 
A mother-power of faith indigenous 
Well-worth as any dreamt-of hitherto 
In love's philosophy ; a vision open'd 
To regions of the world's old chronicle 
Of thought's preadolescence ; in my creed 
Mistook for myth. The magic openeth 
Of fairyhood back-reaching infinitely 
Unto the dawn behind the noon in thee. 



37 



LOVE POEMS 



XIV 

The dawn whereto yon orience belongs 
Of fair ingenuousness were in thee still : 
A naivete acceptive, satisfied 
In bland recipience as of vitalism 
Fancied in all around — and sagely so ! 
The vex'd perplexity of cosmic years, 
Soul-overweighting, wisely melts away 
In mother-instinct of the youth of truth. 
And in the wisdom heart-autochthonous 
Thy wide-rewarded spirit sees, at peace. 
The wonder-prospect of the leading-forth 
By sympathy of infancy through earth. 



38 



PARENTALS 



XV 

It were not, then, a harvesting of truths 
Haply fore-ripen'd and wherefrom to pick 
This fruit or other to the quickening 
Of the taste in this our babe ; but germinance 
Of child's-own earth, from earliest sense-seed 
Implanted, gradual with every growth 
Of the flower of sensibility upon him ; 
And ours, as guided by thy morning-sight 
Of all day's blare had blinded, to believe 
Anew, through him and with his hourly need, 
The truths of unsophistication, faith's 
Sufficiencies heart-graded day by day/ 



39 



LOVE POEMS 



XVI 

AND thus the guide-responsibility 
But implicates affinity of sense 
With him, the so-dependent on earth's power: 
Of our part learn'd love's protogenesis 
Almost unguess'd in my philosophy 
Yet serving well the secret of a spirit 
Whose proper kinship with the wilds and ways 
Of simpler earth-things long-since slept forgot — 
Since childhood in us snatch'd maturity 
And left life's toys a-lying. And thus our age 
Matures in youthfulness by fetching youth 
Back to our bosoms in a little child. 



40 



PARENTALS 



XVII 

How well the little child shall lead us then 

Back through the years whose sweetness quintessent 

Wells up within me as I gaze, in thee, 

On sweetness quintessent of motherhood 

And, in the babe, on leadership at last 

Provided to the mind's perplexity. 

The pain and wearing of the days foregone, 

The fear and suffering now, in sooth, are shown 

The way of vision ever-orient. 

Horizon-cirque of spirit, scarce by loss 

Of life erst continental but, by breadth 

Of outlook o'er primordial oceanhood. 



41 



LOVE POEMS 



XVIII 

Though there the scenic figure fain betrays 

The spiritual fault should we neglect 

The eminence in us, above the child's, 

Down-stooping, and ennobling this we see. 

The fairyhood were fairer in our hearts 

Than his, beloved ! For in us the feel 

Of fresh-won innocence, through him achieved, 

Assoilzies and enlightens, ah, how rich 

And far a reach of world-soul intercourse, 

How vast a sweep, beyond beginnings in him 

Of all thy tender dawn-sight recreates ! 

No child must backward lead us from love-truth. 



42 



PARENTALS 



XIX 

Love-truth we 've long-laboriously achieved — 

Now none less cherishable that the child 

His very innocence enricheth it ! 

Not for one instant must the guidance fail 

Of this thy heart-sight fostering in him 

(Firmlier than inference acceptingly 

Of earth's sense-kinship fairy-fanciful ; 

Firmlier than infanthood ! ) prepotencies 

Of sane sophistication best fulfill'd 

Through heart-felt sympathies scarce simulating 

Life as in lifeless-elemental, but 

Stablishing spirit where is life in love. 



43 



LOVE POEMS 



XX 

And, because love 's of beauty, life of song 
(Insight, expressive comprehendingly), 
This song unto his spirit stablishing 
Wisdom of beauty where the infant-wail 
Would fail of speech-suffusion ! If to him 
Be sensitive acceptance, awesome trust — 
Yet not to him the voice as unto us 
Of meaning, of interpretation ! So 
Be inarticulance mind-interfused 
In speech of conscienced innocence ; be love 
(Proved infancy of trust brought to self-sight 
As truth) made vocal in integrity. 



44 



PARENTALS 



XXI 

FOR thus no more mere dread perplexity 
At pain and earth's birth-problem, but a speech 
Of all-adoption, in solemnity 
Engender'd of the suffering and fear; 
Yet intimate of serious happiness 
Responsibly content ; ingenuous 
Desire and delight for parenthood 
As by the babe reveal'd and satisfied ! 
I had not thought within thy pain to find 
Such solace as this little child hath brought 
Who, born of terrible sacrifice, hath furnish'd 
Full resonance to rack'd strings of the soul. 



45 



LOVE POEMS 



XXII 

And so unto the cradle may we bring 
A childhood-fantasy, feeling with him 
The fairyness of earth and speaking it 
With delicate elaboration in 
The touch of playful mystery, to lead 
The babe in tenderness of heart ; but aye. 
For complement to childness, subtler sense 
Of beauty to interpretance mature : 
The fantasy, the beauty equally 
Based in a sympathy perceptive of 
Kinship of nature — at the acme now 
In faith appreciative parentwise. 



46 



PARENTALS 



XXIII 

HOW wonderful without compare then, love, 

That we, in adolescence held apart 

And sharing nought of childhood-memory, 

Should in this second childhood be at one ! 

How poor the price of pain and suffering 

Which unto years of parenthood affords 

The mutual infancy, the memories 

Amalgamated and revivified 

Backreaching through the years of loneliness 

To weld both lives, as 'twere from birth, beyond 

Allpossibility of severance 

Unto one human whole within us both ! 



47 



LOVE POEMS 



XXIV 

An human whole be this, the spirit-birth 

Of genesis within us severally 1 — 

What uplift in the outlook ! With what hymn 

Of hope indemnified thy lips with mine 

Join in life-celebration ! — And, with feel 

Of primal intimacy, falls upon 

These hearts alike the momentary hush 

Of awed inception ere a realizing 

In absolute fruition. Dear, but one vigil 

Of mute acceptance (ah ! scarce dread-compell'd) 

Ere burst, perchance, some perfect song of souls 

Union'd and firmamental from the first ! 



48 



RELIGION IN NATURE 



RELIGION IN NATURE 



With thee, beloved, to the wilds and ways 

Of the elder earth mine indolence hath come 

For fair rejuvenation in the spirit 

Of sunshine and the poesy of air 

Open and unconfmed, the breath of heaven : 

With thee and through thee to attain by earth 

A recrudescence and be hale and whole, 

Breathed as the winds and tongued as woods and sea, 

As hilltops sighted and the mountain-birds 

That, swift o' the breeze and voiced as forest-boughs 

Or shoreward surges, feel in heart the strength 

Of ancient eminence enocean'd round. 



51 



LOVE POEMS 



II 

Not as erstwhile alone and sorrowing, 
In desperation delving (banish 'd, ay, 
From heart's urbanity) I 'd vainly seek 
The peace of comprehension in the primal 
And ruder, earlier earth ; not as erstwhile 
To mock with hindsight of an hope denied 
The emptiness of ancientry destroy'd — 
And call the desolation thus divine ; 
Nor as reverted to the dim, uncouth 
And multitudinous incivilities : 
Save so to find in these by sympathy 
The soul-integrity thou bringest to them. 



52 



RELIGION IN NATURE 



III 

FOR now our interchanging courtesies 

Of heart and hand as side by side we mount 

The swart, rough rock-heap, these suffice to show 

The youth perpetuant, child-hearth of home, 

Enimaged in the wilderness : as wide 

We gaze horizonward o'er many a league 

Of flashing sea-sweep, surgent spruce and pine 

In the high noon-scintillance. For these by thee 

Increasingly as loftier yet we climb 

Seem systemized, subsistently composed 

To furtherance in beauty by the working 

Of each least mutuality of all. 



53 



LOVE POEMS 



IV 

There are who take of earth and ocean-round, 
Of mountain and of valley but the feel 
Of grandeur and of wonder-worth at large ; 
For them the scheme composed as though some mind 
And eye beyond the workings of the world 
Survey'd and plann'd and saw that it was good. 
There are for whom beauty can be but this, 
A preadornment to a master-scheme 
Whereof the eye and mind as one apart 
Contemplating, not bearing share in it, 
Conceived and overlaid upon the truth 
Of earth a worth not self-engender'd there. 



54 



RELIGION IN NATURE 



He seeth best (I yield) who loveth best : 
And, so, our hearts by perspicacity 
Of mutual furtherance may sense beyond 
The eye and heart of any of these here, 
Of beast or bird or tree-top or of man 
Who knoweth not their splendor and his own ; 
And in such sort the beauty is beyond them 
And overlaid upon the plan of all. — 
Yet not the eye nor mind may enter in, 
Save as imaginate with purport toward 
The least of these that anywise hath heart 
And purport in environment contain 'd. 



55 



LOVE POEMS 



VI 

So, wanting thee (myself a mind without 
The secrecy of things), I might not take 
The meaning as in beauty, but construed 
An ordering as of fiat and a scheme 
Conceived of desolation terrible 
Despite the breadth of vision ; saw the stroke 
That blasted ; and in resignation sought 
Sublimity by dominance ordain'd 
Over a shattered purpose and an hope 
Shamed of rebellion as all earth aghast 
Lay abject, cowering beneath the sword. 
But found not comfort of the holier truth. 



56 



RELIGION IN NATURE 



VII 

Yet now no wounded stem beside our path 
Without life's inward splendor ; not one sound 
Of windy eminence (the wash of the boughs 
Or wail of wood-bird) but in wildness speaks 
The world-old secret, shared this hour through thee 
Within me ! For no purport superposed 
Predominates to make of waves of the sea 
Subserviences. But an ordering born 
Of hand-to-hand and heart-in-heart proclaims 
The comfort of domestic holiness 
Achieved of wilderness its every heart 
Envisaged and embosom 'd of an own. 



57 



LOVE POEMS 



VIII 

FOR each intendeth all, as 't were through thee 

Enlighten'd over and beyond the stress 

Of privy struggling elementalwise. 

For each intendeth each as though with joy 

Confronting effort and engendering 

In universal domicile his offspring 

Of spirit-effluent — my truth with thine. 

And where seem'd once but overmonadwise 

A God (and mirrors merely of His might), 

Now gleam the mundane multitudes, approved 

Each godly and ensphering everywhere 

A myriad monism as of thine in mine. 



58 



RELIGION IN NATURE 



IX 

The youth of the world indeed is now within us, 

As, overtly without, all things are young ! 

The ways of the world throughout rejuvenant, 

Intend but holier hearthstone and the home 

Now calling from below over the sea ! 

For at the hearthstone waits a nobler youth 

(As never in the years of loneliness). 

Youth human, thine and mine for living o*er — 

The childhood of us waiting our return 

And calling as in health of wilderness ! 

Descend we, love, in unioning renew'd 

Of the earlier birth ; wise in our nature-strength. 



59 



LOVE POEMS 



The swift sea-wind is in our faces sweet. 

Earth yearning draweth at our feet ; unloath 

That from the upland rock-heap, down and down, 

Haste to the neighbor-haven, taking ship 

To try with the nether sphere the sweep and surge 

Onward, along of ocean's openness — 

Toward bourn in the fane domestic and the place 

Of the waxing spirit infantile-divine : 

The waxing spirit new-discover'd in us 

By declaration of the wilderness, 

By dedication of the elder earth 

To mutual intropermeance benign. 



60 



RELIGION IN NATURE 



XI 



Beloved, and may I therefore still respond, 

Though indolently aging, to the lift 

And throb of sunbeam and of ocean-spume. 

The orb of heaven and myriad-mated proof 

Of heart's high health of the monad-wilderness 

Its immanence of mutuality, 

Its beauty by power of the private worth 

Of each least straggling weed, each air-wing'd voice 

Breathed and besoul'd by inference of an whole. 

Love ! not an Whole beyond the reach of each ! 

Love ! no All-Love ! — But this sweet heart-in-heart. 

Religion of our nature as we live ! 



6i 



WORK AND DEATH 



WORK AND DEATH 



Dear heart, our hearts have shared alike the woe 

Of watching by the side of him we love 

The hours and hours, the nights and days, away 

While fever and pain upon the pitiful frame 

Have wrought well-nigh their worst — the hour of death 

Seeming at any hour from him not far. 

And therefore close to our own piteousness 

The death-spirit hover 'd. And our hearts of love 

Were silent, heavy. But the sufferer's smile 

With life returns ; rejoicing hourly more 

The wearied eyes of watching. That our hearts 

Are lifted and our sighs transformed to song. 



65 



LOVE POEMS 



II 



FOR, with the hope of health in him we love, 

Hath come to us, not stimulance alone 

In life's anticipation but, therewith 

The happiness of helpfulness, the sense 

Of stress and woe rewarded in the stint 

Of daily, momently assisting toward 

His comfort and establishment in strength. — 

It were not that mere natural descent, 

Continuance of our race which seem'd estopp'd, 

Were rescued. For the cumulance of life 

Lies less in generation than in labor 

To foster, to make flourish, whom we love. 



66 



WORK AND DEATH 



III 



And only when the fostering, estopp'd, 

Turns to decay is heart's dismay upon us ; 

The help perverted, scarce the lineage lost, 

Destroying faith's foundations. Yet the beloved. 

Being loved for sonship, life-inheritance, 

Is doubly loved ; blood-nature too inciting 

That aid which mainly springs more spiritual. — 

And to help-effort, happily at heart. 

Our dawns are dedicated . Though within 

Are adumbrations of a deeper joy 

In sorrow shrouded ; of a grief or joy 

(I know not) founded in the fear o'erpast. 



67 



LOVE POEMS 



IV 

FOR such our normal nurture that, if life 

Along a wonted level of fair days 

Allow our avocations without let ; 

And strength be equal ; then the helpfulness 

Of hourly intercourse with all around 

(And specially with sonship, as by nature !) 

Seems spirit-perquisite, a privilege 

Not readily nor yet expectedly 

In danger of a forced relinquishment. 

And from such surety breedeth in our hearts 

An artifact of arrogant self-trust, 

Conceit of spiritual sufficiency. 



68 



WORK AND DEATH 



Not that the normal outlook may not fmd 
From day to day the usual rebuff 
Of half-frustration, testimonial shrewd 
Of derogation from the standard set 
For fair achievement ! Yet some modicum 
Of alteration of the face of things 
Toward betterment unto a shaping whim 
Or guiding principle of arrogance 
May show unto the setting of the sun. 
And, with the rising next, ariseth in us 
Fresh expectation of accomplishment 
According to the measure of a man. 



69 



LOVE POEMS 



VI 

But, face to face with death, what providence 
Of personal provision can avail ? — 
The fate, maybe, averts itself. Or some 
Peculiar care duly evades for once 
The momentary menace — and insofar 
Is miracle accomplish'd, conquering 
The terrible dismay confronting us. 
And he we love smileth the more secure ! 
But still the fact of fate, the sight of self 
In premonition powerless, abides 
Shaking the quicksands of our self-conceit. 
Shuddering the courage of our ignorance. 



70 



WORK AND DEATH 



VII 

Though hereupon some comfort. We are come 

Not strangers to the world, not elsewise form'd 

Of alien order unto which our proof 

Of life-in-death were all-inimical ! 

But, so earth-domiciled, our hearts are home : 

Involved, evolved of truth-experiment, 

The creatures of self-circumstance innate ; 

Are come, in courage or in cowardice 

(Still equally in either sort), entail'd 

Of the nature-fluxion of a death-in-life, 

Axiom and explanation in ourselves 

Of the very confrontation now abhorr'd. 



71 



LOVE POEMS 



VIII 

I MEAN not merely that the onward move 

Of earth, the cyclic iterance, hath need 

Of death and death-succession, to make place 

For fresh performance all-improvingly : 

And, so, that death had come to dwell with us. 

For such surplenitude, such plethora 

Of instances, requiring sacrifice, 

Were the very crux But that the spirit we are, 

Aware of death, by that awareness takes 
Truth best upon herself, earning her state 
In sequence sacrificial : life proved love, 
In passion of the death-envisagement. 



72 



WORK AND DEATH 



IX 

And thereby doth achievement within death 

Survive and flourish, every circumstance 

Of spirit germane unto the paradox, 

Not as inimical to health of soul 

But, as preconstitution of the heart 

Wherethrough alone can real accomplishment 

Obtain. Nor need there now be balance drawn 

Between the sum of such accomplishment 

And mortal inefficiency. For, lo ! 

Yon passion in the embers of our pride, 

Aglow but in the breath of chastening : 

Which age-long by the death- wings hath been fann'd, 



73 



LOVE POEMS 



Dear heart, death's absolute overmastery 
Foreproven in our natural helplessness 
Beneath the fear and rumor of his fame 
So hovering close upon the soul we love ; 
And yet outbraved within the militance 
Of death-appreciation while we toil ; 
Precludes the more-and-less of estimate. 
Our life's accomplishment can still contain 
The very blotting-out (though only guess'd 
And momently forepast), avow the fear 
Destructive of creation ; and still live 
Evaluative though annihilate. 



74 



WORK AND DEATH 



XI 

AND thus the nobler grief, the joy austere 
Alike, the outlook and acceptance whole 
Of will self-sacrificial ! For see, how life — 
Already seeming deep and rich enow 
With hope and failure, in the peril felt 
For love's sake (and the perilment of love 
Overpast) — hath deepliest, richliest qualified 
Experience of the spirit, so learning most 
The meed of parentage to be maintain'd. 
The life-efficiency, by death therethrough 
Avow'd and death's all-cancellation felt, 
Itself were absolute, incalculable — 



75 



LOVE POEMS 



XII 



AND, SO, world-fostering, a power, a pulse 
Of spirit-inspiration, an ideal 
Creative ; through the ages mundanely, 
Of love even and the joy of helpfulness : 
This son we love and fear'd-for teaching us 
The way of labor everlastingly. — 
Lift we the living burden, aye expecting 
Unto our labor death's quietus yet. 
Love we the fear; and, with the courage born 
Of fear accepted, watch beside the world 
The heart-achievement immanent, the wisdom 
Of confidence : in failure beautiful. 



76 



SONGS OF THE GENERATIONS 



SONGS OF THE GENERATIONS 



Ah, love ! when I consider in mine house 
The young child and conceive how we are come 
To dignity of eldness, at a step 
The port and stature as of ancestors 
(And desuetude ancestral so entail'd !) ; 
Whilst he, the novel generation, groweth 
Dearly usurping all the livelier grace 
Of hope : the waxing, not the waning, life ; 
Then in the pause of vision 'd parentage 
Back hark I to that earlier state foregone 
Of mine own childhood, mine envisagement 
Of father and of mother lost erewhile. 



79 



LOVE POEMS 



II 



The feel of abdication from the seat 

Of power in yielding place, if wilfully, 

To heart's beloved heir hath brought therewith 

Retirement from any real turmoil 

Of over-effort toward accomplishment 

In mine own person, brought acceptance of 

The substitution, the fresh vicarage : 

Explaining to my soul the paradox 

Of self-postponement, living-o'er-again, 

Which even mine adolescence, youth-purblind. 

Perceived for marvel of my parents' spirit 

In daily rendering up their seat of self. 



80 



SONGS OF THE GENERATIONS 



III 

I PLEDGE me, never to their latest hour 

Did they retire from ripe accomplishment 

Or soul-responsibility within 

Their part and purport to the world at large : 

For they were noble of their souls' degree ! 

But yearly, hourly (doubtless) did they learn 

Increasingly a power of prophecy, 

Of — come-what-would — achieving ere their death 

Man's preparation for the child-god's way — 

That untoward and usurping force still fed 

Of the very lives the which its youth outwore 

And drove to desuetude : as now mine own. 



8i 



LOVE POEMS 



IV 

Yet now I feel whereby the force I was 

Of new assertion and displacingness 

Brake not the hearts of them whose eldness seem'd, 

At first, but natural effacement from 

The genuine stir and meeting-place of life. 

Now feel I why within me reverence 

Responded, with a filial grace uprear'd, 

Unto the infinite service of their care. 

Now feel I how the heart parental takes 

The stings of child-encroachment gratefully 

And by the gratitude evokes perchance 

A piety — though in the breast of youth. 



82 



SONGS OF THE GENERATIONS 



AND subtly sweet the compensation here 
Provided for the half-forced effacement from 
The front of life : this bosom'd warmth within me 
Of intimate onlook, life anew allow'd 
Vicarious, prophetic ; yet, more sweet 
Subtlier still the assurance to my soul. 
Soothing a conscience' quarter-century 
Of self-reproach, this self -discovery late 
Of compensation operative aye 
Within the father's and the mother's bosom 
Destroying, as I sense it here, all pain 
Of their displacement by the child I was ! 



83 



LOVE POEMS 



VI 



FOR, reverence or stark irreverence 

Alike, stood their largess of gratitude 

In main returned but by the youth in me 

Appropriating hourly from their hand 

The fountain'd bounty half-inexplicable, 

And turning but to purpose of its own 

The lavished, high resource lent of their love. 

Though now the knowledge of like love within. 

Allowing, longing for the sacrifice 

To the waxing future-manhood, cleans the score. 

Wipes out the stain of being born that heir 

Doom'd to displace their souls' nobility. 



84 



SONGS OF THE GENERATIONS 



VII 

The reminiscence, then, were therefore robb'd 
Forever of the childhood's fancied shame ; 
The spirit and sweetness of my child in me 
Vouchsafing revelation (if remote, 
Yet speaking as with sure authority) 
Of that fulfilment which my foil of child 
Afforded — be it childlike ne'er so crude 
Assumptive — to the eld potential in them, 
The eld inevitable : saved of sting 
Itself by that same fact of parenthood 
And inference of sonship. — To be son ! 
Oh, sweet, then, shall the recollection stand ! 



85 



LOVE POEMS 



VIII 

And still how fortunate was reverence, 
Which fortune of my spirit made respond 
The longtime-since-incomprehensible 
Bounty of father and of mother toward me ! 
What satisfaction to the memory 
That deep unto their deeps did daily call — 
Despite earth's mystery scarce-understood 
Of generate usurpation 1 For in me 
Was born the generation's best response ; 
To memory hitherto a partial salve — 
If soothing insufificiently for peace. 
And part of peace is now that reverence. 



S6 



SONGS OF THE GENERATIONS 



IX 

Ah, therefore, love ! pray we the future hours- 
Not for the sake of solace to our own 
By soft complacence of a pride in him 
And perfected approval, but — that he 
Make reverent return increasingwise 
In mutuality unto our care, 
Lapping in love our house, as formerly 
Each house of adolescence of ourselves. 
That, when the fond self-accusation comes 
For usurpation and displacingness. 
Be he by memory some least assuaged 
Long ere the final revelation heal. 



87 



LOVE POEMS 



LONG ere belated revelation yield him 

Solace by knowledge how his growth hath been 

Our growth vicarious, lifting from us 

The burden of the onrush of the world 

Whilst none less leaving in us the wise heart 

Of outlook temporal still self-resign'd 

Interpreting through him this changing face 

Untoward of eldness in eternity ! — 

To him wish we a soul replete as now 

Mine own and thine, beloved, of wisdom earn'd 

Anent the generations, lighting us 

By lamphood : erst received, now * passed adown ' 



88 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



I 

Dear love, it needed not the loyalty 

Of earth's ensuant cycles to attest 

Our love's success, our year-without-end truth 

Of mutual possession. Sun and stars 

With risings and with settings may obey 

Their seasonable promptings whatsoe'er 

And we move with them, if from love to love, 

Evolving still with love's maturity — 

And all be increase as the years behind 

Are cumulant within the years to-be. 

And in such kind is love's success assured. — 

Though of high proof no whit was wanting to us. 



91 



LOVE POEMS 



II 



FOR something is there of right prophecy 
In spiritual containment : in a love 
Like ours of comprehension, all-forestall'd 
What fate soever which the seasons bring — 
Itself, such comprehension, overtly- 
Creative, in its self-conditioning, 
Of all experiment or proof thereof. 
And every instance of the working-well, 
Each after-moment cosmic-orderly 
And earth-comporting, hath a working-worth 
But ever as fresh-defming intimately 
Our souls' compelling insight functional. 



92 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



III 

'T WERE deep ingratitude yet to deny 

Our boon of confirmation, cosmicwise 

Achieved, dear day-by-day, sweet night-by-night, 

With universal acquiescence in 

The union and belonging of our lives. 

Life oft hath parted love : each heart its way 

Without appeal from love misunderstood ; 

And vindication ever been postponed 

Though very death demanded reckoning — 

For these things be about us in the earth 

Of others' hearts incomprehensibly. — 

Or very death perchance had parted us. 



93 



LOVE POEMS 



IV 

But death, that no man spareth, though with us 

A visitant indeed, in such sort smote 

As welded with the warm-ensanguined wound 

Our souls but firmlier in the healing scar — 

One infancy so softly snatch 'd away 

In peace as scarce from pre-nativity 

To waken to the sleep of after-death. 

And, for that gentle sojourner, the days 

(Despite regret for loss, with hope fulfill'd) 

Offer in generous vitality 

The waxing wonder of the childhood, now 

Oft-sung with celebration worshipping. 



94 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



And, though the potency of such a birth 
And of such gradual growth of life with song 
Lay doubtless in our love then at the first, 
Yet death to birth (as with the earlier-born) 
Had like enough, for all the prayers of love, 
Inexorably ensued : ah, save the years 
Of earth themselves had kindlier decreed ! 
Wherefore is votive anthem not inept 
Devoutly in respect of him whom love 
Might preconceive indeed but, save all earth 
Conspired in acquiescence, could not bring 
To year-by-year perfection presently. 



95 



LOVE POEMS 



VI 

And, whilst I chant, he chanteth ; to thine ear 

Blending with speech of mine an own love-speech. 

Blithe-fill 'd of thee as any verse though writ 

In the mystic incitation rapturously 

Of thee within me — as I alway sing. 

And, whilst he dwelleth with us in the world, 

Shall utterance, then, not fail in fair approof 

Of love's fulfilment through the passing years. — 

So death, so birth have kindly visited 

Our love's oeconomy and left with us 

Alike, in keeping to our Lord's command. 

The dues of faithful stewardship fivefold. 



96 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



VII 

And where fivefold hath been the earth's return 

In rhythmus cosmic of the involving spheres 

Which, processful and alway urging on, 

Are yet to primal sight encyclical 

And so for figure serve us of our days 

In measure of a man — where years have been 

In sequence thus sufficient that we pause 

For retrospect and somewhat absolute 

Of satisfaction in their estimate — 

*T were meet that song for hail and for farewell 

Mark the sweet stade upon the journeying. 

For we joint voyage took, and kept in faith. 



97 



LOVE POEMS 



VIII 

I TOOK thee in the spring ; and now the spring 
A fifth recurrence offereth, buds and birds 
Our service ceremonial solemnizing 
With flowery descant raptured, then as now. 
These delicate hymnodizings in the green 
And gossamer breath of blossomy mists about 
Semble the heart-remember'd morn when we 
From our new home in love-light issuing 
(Thrill'd in the sunshine and the mystery 
Of mutual life-envisagement) stood rapt 
With wonder of the earth's enfolding joy : 
Hand-in-hand gazing from our doorway forth. 



98 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



IX 

What marvel lay behind us ! How the world 
Which long in separate spheres environ 'd us 
Had irresistibly establish'd now 
The intimate conjugation orb in orb ! 
And, fusing both to one concentrate whole, 
Had permeated through-and-through with candor 
Of radiance autovital soul and earth : 
Hearts, ay, and all that heart may see or hear 
Made mutual-possessing and possess'd — 
World yet withdrawn apart, that married truths 
Of married confidences might be free 
In selfhood focuss'd of our common home ! 



99 



LOVE POEMS 



What marvel lay before : one step beyond 

Our portal shimmering the faery-world 

Wherein an earth's futurity was ours ; 

The home behind, where ever to return 

In privileged, all-inclusive solitude 

From soul's excursions ; and before our feet 

Earth's infinite association, then 

As now itself with seasonable loves 

And home-tide glad-resurgent ! I have sung 

Erstwhile the wisdoms of the winter-world 

And fire-bright hearthstone of the home-return. 

Sobeit. But now there is with thee the spring ! 



100 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



XI 



Remember'D is the border of the wood 

Where rippling-windy fields of herb uplift, 

In myriad quivering choristries, to hold 

With intricate chaplets garlanded the bride 

And winged bridegroom fine-melodious near ! — 

A tiniest glint, bright-tonal, 'mid the leaves, 

Scarce-perch 'd, but momently from bough to bough 

With vividest animations fluttering up : 

A tropic-keen intensity of hue 

Like quick blood mounting into vernalness ! 

And thou and I knew how the tree contain 'd 

Love's concentrations, of a world ensphered. 



lOI 



LOVE POEMS 



XII 

I MIND the song, a swift ebullience brief 

Of overjoying energy : too brief 

And leaving on the ear a tune undone 

Maybe, but oft-repeated and so sure 

Of the rightness of the woodland and the world - 

So lets the world but love alone, to sing ! 

I mind the song, familiar-sweet to each 

In our long-separate springtimes ; ah ! so dear 

Even then, for that therein our lives most lack'd. 

And how the recognition on allured us 

Till nigh forgot we, love must nest alone — 

And, suddenly too near, had silenced him ! 



102 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



XIII 

So we of the world of the songster agitant 
(Soft-smiling and with kindness at the core 
For fellowship) abjured the curious quest 
And left to a bosky hermitage the small 
Too-wary homekeepers ; and, faring on, 
Along the blithe, bee-haunted wilderness 
Of faint scents hymeneal, warmly glanced. 
Perchance, each unto each and frankly there 
Press'd hand or lips beneath the guardian heaven ; 
Upgazing after, where the open porch 
Far on the sun-steep'd hill invited aye 
Westward our footsteps from all wanderings. 



103 



LOVE POEMS 



XIV 

LOVE, it was all so fair ! And yet I find 
This fifth return of spring-tide quite as true 
To pulses of the heart and confidences 
Whose dear familiarity of faith 
But makes them dearer. For with every throb 
Of the rhythmus of our days hath been put-by 
Still more and more of meanings unforgot 
And not-to-be-forgotten : whilst we live 
A cumulation in experience 
Of what life close-together, soul-in-soui 
Brings in the practice of it — warmlier still 
Outwearing spring-tide's half-timidity. 



104 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



XV 

Ay, gloried as the May-tide earth may glow 
With conjugal fervor or the hearts of us 
With fire canescent, yet that shrinking from 
The world-suffusion surely may be mark'd 
Alike in the keen nest-keepers of the vale 
Or us of the bridal homestead. If our hill 
Lifts us above the vale as no bush-nest 
Allows of the heart-love's immanency, yet 
The fond seclusion of the first love-days 
Limits love-comprehension, sets the soul 
Someway sequester'd from her lordliest truth 
Of utterance in a world-accomplishment. 



105 



LOVE POEMS 



XVI 

'T WERE true, I ween, no vital immanency 
Of each in each could be establish'd, save 
The privacy of spring permitted love 
The nest, the bird-and-blossom-privilege 
Of soul-retirement, the thee-with-me. 
For otherwise were nought of nucleus fused 
For focus of the radiance nebulous 
In the new-achieving cosmos. Universe 
Requires the sequestration at the first. — 
But, now that spring-tide hath a fifth return. 
Shall summery-universal openness 
Of spirit-interplay be praised aloud. 



io6 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



XVII 

FOR, praising so from open sanctuary 

Of after-proven hymeneal faith 

In comprehensive power, fecundity 

And foison of our fellowship, shall song 

Resound with a rural symphony, the voice 

Untamed if self-controll'd and rightly so 

Rhyming more rich the ardent harmonies 

Of the soul-tide of achievement : earth and sky 

Alike solstitial and so poised and held 

In understanding of the cadences. 

The full-tongued faith-conclusions — world and we 

In conjugate antiphon ; we now as one. 



107 



LOVE POEMS 



XVIII 

Yea, in the dual constitution of 

Our lives and their new ripening (once the spring 

Hath been and nest-time and the privacy 

Of love's oeconomy), provideth love 

The password to the heart and soul of all, 

In absolute intuition sympathizing 

Of the thee-in-me not otherwise attain'd. 

Earth may o'er-teem, that sun above pours down 

His actinism and beneficence ; 

And, though the bird in faith-fatigue cease song 

For burden of the generations' due — 

Shall we not welcome such futurity ? 



io8 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



XIX 

FOR I would scarce allow the song of the bird 
(Meant only for the mating and o'erdone 
With cares of the nestling), howsoe'er bird-whole 
Of nest-truth and leaf-inference, for best 
Of utterance human ; but avow the call, 
Beyond mere wood-note wild, to rhapsody 
In conscience cultured of an assonance 
Wrought of the spirit-labor of the sound 
Of multiple voices of the more-than-men 
Who one by one have led, shall lead, or thee 
Or me or any to the harvest of 
The philosophic arduous prophecy. 



109 



LOVE POEMS 



XX 

A GLORY beyond the rapture of the hour 
Of mating thus abides, though even we 
Approach that harvesting post-aestival. 
And now 't is so the summer of our lives 
Though spring reneweth about us : for we see 
With wider eyes than erst the functioning 
Of spring-tide in the world-time harmonies. 
The joy quinquennial best courseth through 
Our ripening sap-cells, sith fecundity 
Be also ours and foretaste of the whole 
Complex of cosmic conscience in the fruit 
Of progeny, earth's gradual vicarage. 



no 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



XXI 

Prepare we, love, for autumn whilst our gaze 
Feasts as in June-enjoyment and our song 
Includeth earth in love's antiphony ! 
The full quinquenniad hath found us true 
Thusfar to propaedeutic, leading on 
With glad-avow'd responsibility 
The self-succession in the young man-child. 
And so is wisdom as of winter felt 
In every utterance dedicate to him ; 
And philosophic arduous prophecy. 
Beyond love-rapturous privity, in each 
Earth-explanation offer'd to his soul. 



Ill 



LOVE POEMS 



XXII 

Beloved, so lead we him along the wood 
Now flooded with the season ; teaching him 
A commune with all creatures, bird-and-bough 
Companionships primordial : revelling 
Both in the May without and in our June 
Warm-felt within us ; that, when autumn is 
Upon us with a seed-time, decades may 
Leave him unlonely, heart-at-home with earth 
And ready to receive love's benison. 
If scarce from the guidance outgrown yet, by dower 
Of some true woman-mating — (like thine own) 
Some spirit to yield an universe to him. 



112 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



XXIII 

And thus may we our part of more-than-men 
Achieve in this our love-time, handing down 
An influence of comprehension, proving 
By permeation in experience 
The absoluteness of the spring-tide days. 
Love needed not the ensuant loyalty, 
T is true ; nor sun and stars the promptings of 
The rhythmus cosmic. Yet, as man is man 
So fill'd of 'fore and after, must we pause 
One hour in reason 'd gratitude for terms 
Fivefold of attestation : heart in heart, 
For cosmic acquiescence, world-assured. 



113 



LOVE POEMS 



XXIV 

A SONG half-lingers in the woodland — whilst 
Our own, mayhap, be just with June begun ! 
Who knoweth ? There is an art-maturing with 
The journeying of the milestones — and a wealth 
Of forest-ecstacy in forest-death 
So as by fire of an Augusthood : 
As by renunciation, largelier felt 
The multitudinous world-ordering. 
And thou and I, ^soever merged in him 
The man-child, should forevermore be free 
Of the sweet soul-country, faring forth in joy 
From the open porch sun-steep'd, high on the hill, 



114 



POEMS OF A PRAGMATISM 



XXV 

Hail and farewell, our May-time ! We are bride 
And bridegroom fain, if fondly more-than-man 
In love's world-comprehension : birth and death 
Still visitants maybe ; and these our days 
Delightful but by fair conspiracy 
With earth now loveliest to a wandering. 
We are pass'd on to prescience aestival 
Of eldness. But our stewardship hath been 
Fivefold of spring-tide ; and a faith in us 
Abideth spring-like through the moods that move. 
Hail and farewell ! We thank the years that yield 
Such proof, of reminiscence inmostly. 



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SONNETS DOMESTIC 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



EPHEMERIS 

I KNOW not, love, if thou in death shouldst lie 
And speech no more upon thine ear might fall, 
How any song to thy memorial 
Might issue from my lips in threnody ! 
Without thy heart to hearken, how might I 
Weave thee one wreath of music coronal — 
When nothing of the sorrowing at all, 
'Soever soul-felt, could evoke thy sigh ? 

Ah, love ! and therefore, whilst thine ears may hear 

And heart unto the music harmonize, 

Thus morn by morn with service not too late 

I laud thee : that the hour of any fate 

May find some rite accomplish'd, worshipwise 

Some offering accepted and call'd dear. 



119 



LOVE POEMS 



TO JANE IN BEREAVEMENT AND 
EXPECTATION 

I 

O SAD Madonna, waiting still the child ; 

O arms, yet empty of the Savior-form ! 

O mother-heart, so wanting to be warm, 

Though wintrily from harvest-home exiled ! 

O onwardness of life, by death beguiled 

To backward yearnings which no hopes becharm ! 

O wistfulness, prevented to enarm 

Thy sacrifice in service reconciled I 

Thy sacrifices of a ministry 

All soul-devotion and self-offering ! 

Thy longings toward a birth inveterate 

Of endless abnegation ! — Shall these be 

Bemock'd ? Thy motherhood, an empty thing ? 

Shall Christ unto His world not come so late ? 



120 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



TO JANE IN BEREAVEMENT AND 
EXPECTATION 

II 

He first announced divinity to men, 
'Tis true. And seem'd the birth a miracle. 
Through Him indeed the mystery befell 
Of motherhood unto a woman, then 
First ware of heart's infinitude. And when 
He from the life departed, seem'd it well 
A promise, in the loss-impossible, 
Of soul-return unto our yearning ken. 

And unto thee the hope-deferr'd were sore. 
Who look'st in vain unto a vanish 'd God ; 
Nor seek'st within thy sacrament of home 
Christ's seed of self -salvation. But before 
Thee ever lieth the way : where Love hath trod, 
Assurance of earth's humanhood to-come. 



121 



LOVE POEMS 



TO JANE IN BEREAVEMENT AND 
EXPECTATION 

III 

T IS long ago that Christ was born and died. 
Nor shall He live again, for any faith ; 
Not He again be man, though perisheth 
The heart His early advent deified. 
Not Christ the first-born ever shall provide 
Transcendence spiritual over death 
Unto thy loneliness : unless love's wraith 
Suffice in sorrow to the mystic Bride. 

But to thy purification beyond pain 
And year-o'er-ripening of autumn-grief 
Accept annunciation, as earth's true 
Hope and thy season's quickening again 
Bring nature's own religion ! — Dear, but brief 
Be world's probation to the birth anew ! 



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SONNETS DOMESTIC 



TO ONE BORN LAST NIGHT 

This morning first, the birds sing unto thee ; 
Who many mornings unto thee may sing. 
This morning first, to their high carolling 
Thine ears are openM of all times to-be. 
Thee, first to-day, the all-seeing sun doth see ; 
Whilst wondering warmth for this thy nurturing 
He poureth with his light on every thing. 
For yester-morn thou wast not unto me. 

Yet now to-day within my heart of song 
Thou liest in the woof of a warm love : 
A joy so new, so tender that it seems 
Born as with beauty of the morning-beams 
But now, and of such delicate wonders wove 
As only to high matin-hymn belong. 



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LOVE POEMS 



ON A HUMAN GENESIS 

BORN of eternal broodings thou art come, 

Life fresh-created from the void of things — 

By fiat of unfathom'd offerings 

Fashion 'd and firmamental — to thy home ; 

By offerings and sacrifice, of doom 

Cosmic, to universal questionings 

The answer sacramental : Whoso brings 

Love to the void shall form thee from the gloom. 

And from the gloom sith love hath framed thee erst, 
So ever — as with light of parenthood 
At stream athwart the elemental flood — 
Shall love enshrine thee in its might immersed. 
(And the evening and the morning were the first 
Day. And the father's sight hath found thee good.) 



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SONNETS DOMESTIC 



ANTIPHONAL 

1 HEAR within my liouse the mother-rune, 
Soothing some hour of infant sleeplessness : 
A mystic monotone of tenderness 
By symphony untroubled ; yet in tune 
With sympathy so gracious, the sweet croon 
(For all its unanthemic artlessness) 
Seems a supernal hymn of happiness 
For gratitude at her dear baby-boon. 

And this soft sound is heard within my walls 
Long unmelodious for our lost child — 
Heard ever with unceasing marvel mild 
That this supreme to her and me befalls, 
'Suaging in us all loneliness of heart. 
And in the simple song my soul hath part. 



125 



LOVE POEMS 



TO MY BABE IN SUMMER 
I 

I WEAVE around thy cradle many flowers 

In garden-guerdon of an hundred hues, 

Culling from field and hedge-row rainbow-showers 

Of sweetness for thine infancy to choose. 

Fairness I fetch thee, that thy latent powers 

Of faith at sight may seize, nowise to lose 

From plastic deeps, earth's beauty that embowers 

Eye both and brain — absorb, nor e'er refuse 

(For winter-destitution in the night 

Of harden'd manhood), this that in the soul 

Springs as a dawn-inalienable right 

Of wonder and of joy to make thee whole 

By friendliness with earth. — Thee flowers I bring 

To teach thy tongue, or e'er it speak, to sing. 



126 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



TO MY BABE IN SUMMER 
II 

And songful how much more thy sympathizing 

Shall be, when not these blossoms garlanded 

Unto thine infantile idealizing 

Must die in heaps about thy bodeful bed ! 

How loveliest then thy voice of poetizing 

When never these poor petals withered 

(Our wanton coronal their woe disguising) 

To stimulate sight-appetite are fed — 

Sad victims of the Moloch of the mind ! — 

Into the maw of man's intelligence. 

Ah ! rather may the feel of kith and kind 

Inform thee, through whatever aiding sense, 

Of beauty spiritual : that thy song, 

O Poet, do the living earth no wrong ! 



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LOVE POEMS 



TO MY BABE IN SUMMER 
III 

FOR never need the truth-compelling spirit 

Destroy with interfering artifice 

Of hand impertinent to pluck and wear it 

The crown of life's environmental bliss. 

To feel best beauty (ay, to see and hear it, 

To taste the sweetness of earth's common kiss) ; 

To sense of the world the wonders which endear it ; 

And prosper both thy soul and them in this 

Mutual bourgeoning : 't is, not to warp 

Each natural purpose to some fanciful 

Mood-symbolizing — but, to tune thy harp 

With high interpreting heart-plausible. 

For then thy garden, in the art of love, 

Flowers forever with fresh guerdon-trove. 



128 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



SON OF MAN 

The story of the savior-child is true. — 

'T is the first Christmas. The low cottage-eaves 

Are heavy-laden ; whilst, with weary leaves, 

Labor 'heath winter's weight the fir-boughs too. 

And living-kind, or beast or bird, are few 

Abroad in the hard weather ; for each heart cleaves 

To shelter, where fox-cub suck'd 'mid summer sheaves 

Haply, or — long-whiles erst — the nestling flew. 

The savior-story so is credible. — 
Though thou, far sky-divinity, art dimm'd ; 
And pagan blindness miss thee from the Goal ; 
Bides yet earth's love-lair : where, enshelter'd well 
(For me, as not for beast or bird), sweet-limb'd 
The Child, peace-giving presence of thy soul. 



129 



LOVE POEMS 



SOMNIUM 

Dear heart, I only dream'd it: thou, hate-rife. 
Estranged and unresponding ; I, distraught ! 
Dear heart, I only dream'd it, but was brought 
Thereby to misery — a ruin'd life ! 
And now, awakening, from such dream-strife 
Am wondrously deliver'd : every thought 
Enfranchised from the bitterness sleep-wrought ; 
Free of thy spirit-saviorship, sweet wife ! 

Dear heart, but I have suffered, if in dream. 
The poison'd fangs of soul and felt how hell 
Can crawl the floor of heaven to strike and bite ■ 
For me, a fantasy of ghoulish night ; 
For thee, a Sonnet : just a way to tell 
The absoluteness of our love supreme. 



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SONNETS DOMESTIC 



PRIMAVERA 

And (hark !) unto the harmonies of earth 
Is tuned a new-delighted, delicate joy : 
Such gossamer glee as veriest birds employ, 
Uprippling, with unmeditated birth 
And innocence immaculate of mirth, 
To melody of life without alloy. 
For thou, not yet who lispest, poet boy ! 
Babblest a nature lyre of infant worth ! 

Within thine April soul the pulse of speech 

In merriest heart-articulance awakes 

To wildwood-quickening overflow : such laughter 

As Spring outpours upon the tongue of each 

Breeze-breath and sap-thrill ; such bud-truth as takes 

Interpretation of the blossoming after. 



131 



LOVE POEMS 



TELEPATHEIA 

I 

LO ! I am ill : and thou not here to hold me 
From harm in the night-watches, nor to take 
The loneliness from long-drawn hours awake 
For want of thy sweet pity to enfold me. — 
How would I weep, to hear thy love retold me 
As on that night when first thy lips did make 
Confession of their faith in me : to slake 
The thirst of .mine, wherewith thy soul ensoul'd me 

'T is our betrothal .season come around 
With anniversal yearnings seasonable ; 
A night of pity and an hour of needing. 
When memories tormentingly abound 
And love itself is loneliness at pleading. 
And soul is sick : and thirst, inexorable. 



132 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



TELEPATHEIA 
II 

LO ! I am ill : and thou once more beside me 
With, minist'ring sweet purpose and an heart 
Blithe only to anticipate the smart 
Of wifely sympathy whate'er betide me. 
And bitterly no more in brain deride me 
Betrothal memories. The tears that start 
Are simple gratitude for that thou art — 
Angel of consolation ne'er denied me. 

So our wan anniversal watch is blent 

Of mystical suffusion ; a vigil-season 

Too vivid as of sap-insurgent meaning 

To estimate past hours lonelier spent : 

An instant reminiscence, ripely gleaning 

Love's long-reap'd instincts to a warm unreason. 



133 



LOVE POEMS 



TO JANE: WITH A WEDDING-CAKE AND 
CANDLES 

It matters not what anniversary, 
How few the years of bridal we have seen ; 
How late-enflower'd a plenitude hath been 
Of spirit-pair'd communion. Thou and I — 
So long or short a joy we may put by — 
Are rich beyond computing, with the green, 
Ungarner'd hours of affluence between 
The budding and the fruitage finally. 

And therefore are these weeks of blossoming, 
These warm communions of sun-married Spring 
And interchange of leafy sympathies 
With raptures of the birds' sweet syllabling. 
Rightly our feast-days : hours when heart and eyes 
Alike are conscious of infinities. 



134 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



TO MY BOY, UPON HIS BIRTHDAY 
I 

One season-cycle of the sun hath sown, 

Since first he beam'd upon thee, but the seed 

Of health and infant wholesomeness ; the weed 

Or canker, broadcast of the breezes blown. 

Being strewn far from thee: that thy frame hath grown 

In sweetness as in strength ; and all our heed 

For parent-pride in gardenhood hath meed 

Ample in bedded leafage bravely shown. 

So primal, yet so perfected a year ! — 

Ah ! would but earth perennially conspire 

To keep thee, heart and soul, encloister'd still, 

Hedged-in from every spirit-wind of ill : 

A lovely life to life's primordial fire 

Greenly resurgent sans reproach or fear ! 



135 



LOVE POEMS 



TO MY BOY, UPON HIS BIRTHDAY 
II 

Nay, child ! can any soul, sequester'd round 
(Sans proofs of storm-wind and the tests of ill : 
Batten 'd as with sweet waters to the fill) 
From weed and worm in covenanted ground, 
By proud, superfluous petals spirit-bound — 
Then of the summer's warmth abandon'd ! —still 
Lift free to fruit against the fall, and will 
Love's reawakening though in burial found ? 

A year so perfect, yet so primitive ! — 

Lo ! may but earth yield thee the worth of life 

For overcoming of the wrath of it : 

The struggle as the sympathy, the fit 

Survival of the generous in strife ; 

The ripe self-conquest of who braveliest live ! 



136 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



TO JANE, HER MAGIC 

I FEAR, dear friend, how all the poethood 
Of dawn, the half-light fantasy that sings 
(Youth's aspiration in the airy wings) 
Are long since from mine elemental mood 
Vanished ; the wakening hill, the hearkening wood, 
The whispering wind of morn-imaginings, 
Unto the sanity that noontide brings 
Too strictly known, too little in the blood. 

And, yet, to take of thee thy light-of -heart 
Were, every hour more sure, to understand 
The poetry of earth, the throb and lift 
Of sympathy, in everything thy gift : , 
To waft with thee the liberating wand 
Of woman-truth instinct with faery art. 



137 



LOVE POEMS 



TO ONE LEARNING TO TALK 

I 

Already thine infant tongue attempts to tell 

The secrets of the centuries, to be 

Interpreter of hourly mystery 

And prophet of the faith ineffable : 

Thine inarticulance a miracle 

Of absolute meaning ; if, at best, to me 

A babbling, at the baby heart of thee 

An utterance universal, languaged well. 

Dear child, I know the impulse infinite 
Of speech, the feel of utterance achieved 
Transmuting, world-illumining — and then 
The failure of the truth among all men. — 
Singer ! when thy psalm needs to be received, 
May I have soul, to apprehend aright! 



138 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



TO ONE LEARNING TO TALK 
II 

But, also, be thou heedful that thy speech 
Be alway tender of thy fellow's whim, 
Imbued with deference for the faith of him, 
Preventing bitterness : that unto each 
Shall seem his own the truth thou so wouldst teach 
And thy light be unto the utmost rim 
Transfused and love-irradiant of the dim 
Uncertain vistas to the stars that reach. 

And by the service social shall thy word 
Inform thy mind with symbols manifold 
Unguess'd of him who sitteth still alone ' 
To sing, and marks no heart-beat but his own. — 
Attune truth-fellowship ; and thou hast told 
What needs not, yet deserveth, to be heard. 



139 



LOVE POEMS 



TO ONE LEARNING TO TALK 
III 

And thus, dear child, be but the more sincere 
For each fresh insight of the world so woo'd, 
Conforming speech to private poethood 
(Not to the caption of the listening ear) 
The richlier by thy love for them that hear. 
For he, that needs not to be understood 
Because all hearts reveal him to his mood, 
Sings the true universal inly dear. 

And therefore thy rhapsodic prophet-trance 

Shall wax but wiselier lyric by the height, 

The depth and breadth and strength of helping power, 

The zeal of every ministering hour 

Concluded of thy spirit in its might. — 

Serve ; and thy soul shall not miss utterance ! 



140 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



THE FIRST WORD 

LO ! — whether because the lips ancestrally 
That kiss'd thee in the morning of thy kind 
And had the shaping of thy primal mind, 
Being hopeful to propitiate, did try 
To teach thee of thy father flattery 
And prosper so their babe ; or if behind 
The tender syllabling thy soul *s inclined 
Toward immanent affection — here am 1 1 

By a new bond beholden at thy call 
I hearken a behest, and I am here. 
Whilst to the wonderment of every ear 
Thy late-won spell controlleth me in thrall : 
The Name — as anciently supposed of some, 
A Power to make the heart-beats go and come ! 



141 



LOVE POEMS 



THE FIRST FLIGHT 

I 

The house is strangely silent : not a stir 

Above, even in that adytum where nurse 

Is priestess of the immemorial verse ; 

No croon, no high acclaim of him nor her ! 

Yet, since that morning when Lovers messenger 

Had left him in the temple to disperse 

The veriest shades of night, no hour the worse 

Hath seem'd for hymns of such a torchbearer. 

And now 't is silence — counted gloom by gloom 
Unto the worshiped prodigal's return ; 
Who, year by year but with a further flight 
Forsaking still the nest, shall lightly yearn 
To his own hour of mating : when the night 
Shall find mine house as songless as the tomb. 



142 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



THE FIRST FLIGHT 
II 

But yet, what joy to see how he, my son, 
Shall taste of freedom and the morning-earth 
The sweets outside the temple, though the hearth 
Of parentage be dark, the nest-hour done ! 
What years of youth-renewal but begun 
For us who, if with a vicarious worth 
Thereby the livelier, take the marvel-mirth 
Of sunsurge and the fledgling-clarion ! 

And when the fun and flutter shall be o'er 
Of dewtime, frolic heedlessness in him, 
When stirrings of maturing spirit thrill 
The noontide to a glory — shall eyes be dim 
Behind dull panes which so still gaze their fill 
Openly under heaven as of yore ? 



143 



LOVE POEMS 



PROPAEDEUTIC 
1 

ANON, upon men's myriad walks and ways 
A small, uncertain step hath enter'd : he, 
My son, essaying, if but deviously. 
The all-uneven surface of earth's maze. 
And firm through enterprise of lordlier days 
Shall largelier go and come the step to-be ; 
Leading, in man-reliance, far from me 
And guardianship outworn of hand and gaze. 

But now, that yet each tottering effort ends 
In lost precipitance, and parent-arms 
Are more-than-human strong and wide and sure 
Ah ! trust that of the learning shall endure 
The sense of sonship in him : from all harms 
Of soul enarming, far as soul extends ! 



144 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



PROPAEDEUTIC 
II 

Ah, time was when above all walks of man 
Seem'd some o'er-human guardian leaning out 
Of heaven with father-arms our paths about, 
Leading and leading since the world began. 
And unto Him our every journey ran. 
Or swift or slow, undeviant — in rout 
Or confidence, yet safeliest ! But doubt 
Hath left our steps to guide us as they can. 

So, * in default of any fathering God ', 
Must fatherhood unto our end-of-time 
Sustain thee in a sonship ; and my heart 
Be absolute in zeal to serve the start 
Anent thy man-salvation. That thy prime 
Shall trace a truth, there where thy feet have trod. 



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LOVE POEMS 



PROPAEDEUTIC 
III 

FOR nothing of that Godship men have lost 

Need so be wanting to us. But a lore 

Of love, a mutual intimacy more 

Ennobling than of angels, pay the cost 

A thousandfold though all the heavenly host 

Are dreams and only death hath gone before : 

We in such orphanage if earning sore 

The cross of Christhood, yet its victory most. 

Cast on my care thy childhood, gentlest son ; 
That I of thee be worthiest in the will 
To lead thee toward an understanding soul 
And strength for sympathy within the whole 
World, that is thine to foster to the fill ! 
For so eternity is best begun. 



146 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



OF RIGHT AND WRONG 
I 

Behold ! but yesterday thy baby breed 
Was free from blame ; if human, without sin : 
No matter what thy hands were busied in, 
An heart immaculate of moral meed, 
A soul beneath least hint of ethic heed 
Imputed, Edenwise a blank within. 
Yet now thy tiny hands and feet begin 
A mischief — mischief meant in will and deed ! 

Stern duty toucheth thee ; and at the nod 
Thy new humanity is hard at bay, 
Dogged and resolute to be not — dress'd ! 
And we must threat thee of a worst and best, 
Beset thee with the thorns of yea and nay. 
And spoil thy peace if we would spare the rod. 



147 



LOVE POEMS 



OF RIGHT AND WRONG 
II 

Perchance, thine innocence was some mistake 

Of hearts case-harden'd beyond niceties 

Of virtues eozoan ; and thine eyes 

Have alway chosen, cradled yet awake, 

A better or a worse to make or break 

A moralism in thee, only wise 

In ways less overt to our sympathies — 

Who now at heart with anxious insight ache ? 

I doubt me. — But the doom imperial 
Of good and evil in the spirit borne 
Confronts thee from this hour ; for thee, for us 
A kindred crown of torture glorious. — 
And ours, to learn thy longings and to warn 
As best we may. And thine, to come at call. 



148 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



QUINQUENNIAL 

Beloved, when first we met, how seernM thy face 
The face of some remember'd friend, thy speech 
A converse sweet-continued — though the reach 
Of sight or sound before in any place 
Had not for me contain 'd thee, and the grace 
Of years fivefold hath since sufficed to teach 
But little of the years lost unto each 
In ignorance of such an heart-embrace ! 

But, soft ! There lispeth at our hearth the truth 

Of that miss'd reminiscence, o'er and o'er 

Companionable to our mutual youth. 

And one, who breathed and died, breathed not in vain 

Of past infinitudes : betwixt us twain 

A bond of joy just-born forevermore. 



149 



LOVE POEMS 



ATTAINMENT 

I 

Beloved, when the failure day by day 

From any perfected accomplishment 

Offends the spirit, when the discontent 

Of our humanity contemns the clay 

That erst had aspiration ; then I pray 

To thee, with him who unto us was sent, 

For absolution — and, in meekness shent, 

Accept the heart-forgiveness as I may. 

I know that were I nobler than the best 

(More strong to serve and to achieve in thee) 

Thou couldst not more accept nor more make blest ; 

Thou couldst not more achieve the holiest 

Of earth's perfections : thou, with him and me, 

The elemental human family. 



150 



SONNETS DOMESTIC 



ATTAINMENT 
II 

And as some wide embrace of sea and shore 
Enraptures and uplifts us outwardwise 
To feel companionable with the skies 
Whilst none less human humbly to the core ; 
So thou, with him whom thy sweet spirit bore 
To be thy bosom's solace, to mine eyes 
(Though self -abased) affordest high emprise 
And heartfelt inspiration more and more — 
Just by the all-forbearance ! If my part 
Of unattainment still be comforted 
By sense of comradeship with all thou art 
And firmamental kinship with thine heart. 
Shall I forswear the power within me bred 
To sing (and cease not) of thy splendors spread ? 



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